


Gallery Date

by RoseisaRoseisaRose



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: F/M, Modern Day, Reincarnation AU, and minimal handholding, and trace amounts of ars poetica, mostly just chatting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-19
Updated: 2020-09-19
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:14:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,485
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26537890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoseisaRoseisaRose/pseuds/RoseisaRoseisaRose
Summary: “Say, Annie,” he said, taking a step back again as he pointed at the painting. “That pegasus rider . . . she kind of looks like you, right?”Annette looked at the painting and laughed. “You can’t just say all redheads look alike, Felix.” She frowned, slightly. “I wish my hair would do that.”ORFelix and Annette go on a date to an art gallery. Figures in historical paintings are eerily familiar.
Relationships: Annette Fantine Dominic/Felix Hugo Fraldarius
Comments: 14
Kudos: 89





	Gallery Date

“Mostly lances,” Felix grumbled. “You know, historically, most soldiers were trained in swords to start. It’s just the kings and stuff who had lances.”

“I think you just like swords,” Annette argued.

Felix shrugged. “Maybe.”

Annette looked away from the painting of two knights on horseback (who were, indeed, wielding lances) and smoothed down the skirt of her dress. It had cherries on it; she’d bought it at 70% off and it fit her perfectly. She’d only realized after she showed up at the coffee shop where she’d agreed to meet Felix that the charm on her necklace was a slice of cake. He was going to think she was always hungry. Or dropping hints he should shell out for a restaurant next time.

She _wasn’t_ hinting that. When Felix had texted her that there was a temporary exhibit on the Emperor’s War that weekend and would she like to go, one of the first thoughts she had was how nice that would be compared to the endless dinner-and-a-movie dates she’d been pushed into since moving to Fhirdiad. Annette knew just enough about art to find the variety of paintings interesting. Felix knew just enough about history to know some worthwhile things without being too annoying about it. He didn’t try to hold her hand (although maybe she wanted that, she hadn’t decided yet). She might’ve talked him into ice cream after this. It was nice.

“I don't think I recognize this artist,” Felix said, stopping in front of a portrait of the last Emperor of Adestria wielding an enormous axe and peering at the plaque beside it. “Twelfth century. So pretty soon after the war ended.”

“Did you know the last Emperor of Adestria was supposed to be, like, _really_ short?” Annette asked, looking into the determined, stylized eyes of the portrait in front of her. “They always draw her too tall; it’s part of her whole mythos.”

“Do you just keep an encyclopedic knowledge of fearsome short women across history?” Felix asked, grinning down at her, and Annette gave him a scowl, which only made his grin more wicked. “I’d like to see you try to lift an axe like that. That thing must weigh more than you.”

Annette sniffed daintily. “I like to think I’d be incredibly proficient with an axe if I put my mind to it,” she said. “So _you’d_ better watch your jokes, sir.”

His smirk didn’t fade as they wandered down the next wall of paintings.

“Kind of wild they used to ride pegasus into battle, huh?” Felix asked as they paused in front of a large and intricate painting of a pegasus rider and a soldier, clearly the centerpiece of the exhibit. “You’d think a battlefield would be hard enough to navigate without gravity getting in the way.”

“I’d rather like to be able to fly away from attacks, though,” Annette said thoughtfully. “Just avoid the arrows.” She tried to think of the last time she’d seen a pegasus, a real, live one, not just a painting or a televised historical drama. City living meant they were a rare sight, indeed. They were hardly necessary for communication or travel nowadays, and they were such a delicate and expensive animal to breed and take care of, that she mostly thought of them as attached to Olympic events and rich country families. She knew one of Felix’s friends rode pegasus competitively; she had almost spit out her drink when he’d mentioned it, almost casually. As if that were a normal hobby.

Annette was so caught up in her ruminations on pegasus that she didn’t notice Felix stepping away from her, squinting at the painting with a curious look on his face.

“Say, Annie,” he said, taking a step back again as he pointed at the painting. “That pegasus rider . . . she kind of looks like you, right?”

Annette looked at the painting and laughed. “You can’t just say all redheads look alike, Felix.” She frowned, slightly. “I _wish_ my hair would do that.”

“Your hair does that! When you wear it down,” Felix protested. Annette’s hair was firmly in two braids after a disastrous hour with a hair dryer and a curling iron, but he didn’t know that history. “But it’s not just the hair – it’s like . . . your face. Your profile.”

Annette scrunched her nose up. She could see it now that Felix had planted the thought, but that had to be wishful thinking. The pegasus rider was graceful and serene as she leaned over to lock eyes with the knight beside her. Annette was fairly sure if she tried that she would end up on the ground, abruptly and painfully. She hadn’t felt graceful or serene even once in her entire life.

“It says here that this is a portrait of some duke of the realm and his consort, thought to be painted in their lifetime,” Felix said, looking carefully at the plaque beside the painting. “She evidently followed him into the . . . final victorious battle . . .against the . . .” he trailed off reading to himself, then turned and smiled at Annette. “Sorry you have to end up with some stuffy old duke instead of a badass mercenary or something.”

Annette snorted at this. “What could a badass mercenary offer me, in this scenario?” she asked.

Felix shrugged. “Tons of gold? A bunch of cool battle scars? Maybe he can do some cool sword tricks?”

“Back on swords again,” Annette said, rolling her eyes. She looked at the painting again. It was a captivating scene, at once dynamic and calming, and she almost felt as if they would look back at her and wave hello if she stared long enough. Her eyes slid over from the pegasus knight to the man beside her, and Annette let out a soft gasp as she looked at him.

He was bulkier than Felix, to be sure, and with a much more bewildering hairstyle, and wearing much grander robes compared to Felix’s ubiquitous jeans and t-shirt combo. But his expression –

On their second date Felix had taken Annette to a bar uptown where the lighting made everything strangely orange and blue and she had nervously downed three vodka cranberries before realizing that was two vodka cranberries too many. She had then evidently proceeded to tell him at least three separate stories about her cat, given him a detailed history of an inside joke she had shared with Mercedes for the past six years, and explained an entire chapter of her thesis on the history of theoretical magicks that she was still too afraid to show her advisor, even though she’d been researching it for two months. She could barely remember any of this, nor could she remember him calling her a taxi, and she could only vaguely remember him walking her up the stairs to her front door and shining his phone flashlight while she rustled through her bag looking for her keys before mumbling that he’d text her when he got home, a promise she both extracted and enforced with multiple emoji-laden texts.

What she could remember was the way he looked at her, with unnervingly steady eye contact, as she carefully explained her steadfast belief that the world would be better if all pennies were abolished. He looked at her as if she was interesting. He looked at her as if she was somebody. The next morning, nursing a hangover and scrolling through her texts from the night before with repeated groans, Annette was certain she’d imagined it, just another ridiculous fantasy brought on by too much vodka and a desperate need to be valued. She’d put the expression out of her mind.

This knight had the same expression.

“Hey Felix,” Annette said, looking over his shoulder, but he’d already wandered to the next painting, another sketch of a pegasus in flight, although the light and shadow obscured the rider beyond recognition in this one.

“Yeah?” he said, looking back at her. It wasn’t the same interest, but he looked interested.

“Mm, never mind,” Annette said. It was a silly thing to say.

“Do you think the gift shop would have something pegasus-themed?” he asked, staring at the flying beast on the canvas in front of them. “Ingrid’s birthday is sometime this year; she’d probably like that.”

“Already trying to get to the gift shop?” Annette asked in fake shock. “And here I thought you were a man of culture.”

“And here I thought you wanted ice cream,” Felix rejoined, and Annette couldn’t hide her smile as they walked away, leaving the painting of the flier and knight behind them. Felix did grab her hand as they walked out into the museum atrium. Annette decided she liked that, after all.

Months later, when he gave her the pegasus charm necklace he’d ostensibly purchased for Ingrid, he was worried she wouldn’t remember why, but she assured him the painting was permanently etched in her memory.

**Author's Note:**

> Huh. This isn't super my genre, but I made one joke about a Reincarnation AU and my brain was like "okay now you have to write it." Plus I needed some fluff after this week. So here you go.
> 
> The painting they see is (not so) loosely based off [this twitter fanart.](https://twitter.com/milkcubus/status/1306885859694784515?s=21)
> 
> [You can find me on twitter if you want.](https://twitter.com/Rose3Writes)


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